


Into The Dark

by TheSmudgyOne



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSmudgyOne/pseuds/TheSmudgyOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Raven Cycle characters with some Pacific Rim stuff added to their world. (Yes, including drift compatibility!)</i>
</p>
<p>
  <b>Ronan has been unintentionally pulling Kaiju out of his dreams. Adam shows up at Monmouth claiming he has found a solution.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into The Dark

Ronan was surrounded by a circle of bright, searing, white-hot light, and it was not enough.

He had arranged the angry mass of lamps and flashlights around a metal chair on the main floor of Monmouth. And now he sat in it, the light boring into his skin. The bulbs hummed a tinny, vicious chorus. They crowded him. They blazed. 

Beads of sweat popped out from beneath the monsters in his tattoo. But the circle was not hot enough, bright enough, never bright enough, never enough. He could feel his tattoo shifting. The flowers and snakes and ravens had all turned to Kaiju, and the longer he stayed awake, the Kaiju got more restless. They clicked their teeth. They cracked heir spines. They whispered, _sleep sleep sleep._

And Ronan was out of energy drinks.

He stood, and began to search the debris on the floor for his car keys. Unopened water bottles. Official-looking pieces of paper shredded into small pieces. A smashed espresso maker and a hammer coated in espresso beans. Guns strewn around like tv remotes. 

"I took the bullets out."

The voice floated down from a high, dark corner of Monmouth. Ronan looked up. 

With no upstairs lights on, Adam was lit only from below. His open hands rested on the thin metal railing, and his palms glowed like they had been dipped in gold.

"I'm here to help," Adam said, in answer to all of Ronan's questions. _(Why are you here, how are you here, who the hell do you think you are - )_  

"You should have kept the bullets," Ronan said. "You know what's in my head."

"Hmm." Adam walked down the stairs, feet light and soundless. Ronan took a step back.

"You shouldn't be here." Another step back. He grabbed the wall for support. "Did you take my keys?"

"I think I know how to fix this." His accent was strong tonight, that sweet lilt.

"Give them back." Bright spots popped in Ronan's vision. He leaned against the wall. "I just need some energy drinks, I'll figure it out."

Then Adam was right by his side - when did that happen? - holding him up, his voice a soft, steady anchor saying, "I'll help."

Ronan tore away, tore across the room, knocking over hollow cans and sending papers whirling. He grabbed the TV remote and turned on the news. 

Onscreen, they were showing a 3-day-old replay of the Kaiju - Ronan's Kaiju, the Kaiju he had somehow pulled, hungry and bloody, out of his nightmare - ripping the entire roof off Nino's Pizza and eating it in one bite, as people screamed and ran and cried -

_(He drives to Bed Bath and Beyond while the world around him burns, takes every lamp in the store, and swears not to sleep again until he can stop the dreams)_

Ronan felt a touch on his shoulder, cool and light. He whipped his head around. Adam was touching the Kaiju on his shoulder, tracing the lines. Touching it like it was _nothing._

Ronan closed his eyes. Who did this boy think he was, to be so unafraid of him? Who did Ronan think he was, to let him?

"I'm just going to get some energy drinks," he said, his voice broken.

Adam lowered his hand.

"I'll drive, then," Adam said, like they'd had a discussion about it.

Ronan's head pounded. He slipped his hand in his pocket and checked for his driver's license, tracing the smooth edge. Then he nodded to Adam in agreement.  

Once he had some caffeine, he'd get the car keys back. And then he'd get as far away from Adam Parrish as possible.

*

They did not go to get energy drinks.

"It's a detour," Adam said, as Ronan angrily sipped the last bitter dregs of his McDonald's drive-through coffee. "If you don't like where I take you, then say the word and I'll leave."

"The word," Ronan snarled.

In the shadows, Adam looked stronger, less delicate. "You haven't seen it yet."

The streets were unrecognizable. There were fallen streetlamps blocking lanes. Giant strips of road had been ripped out like they were as soft as hunks of clay. Footprints from the jaegers were stamped into lawns. Trees were ripped out by the roots. Half a car - just the back half - sat in the middle of an intersection. And everything was peppered in a wicked, glittering coating of smashed glass. 

Ronan had done this.

When they pulled off the highway, Adam switched off the headlights. With the streetlamps broken, they were driving in almost pitch dark.

"What the hell?" Ronan said. The car swerved slightly, to one side and then the other. "Fuck, Parrish, the lights!"

"We're getting close. We can't be seen."

"You'll hit something! The street-"

But even as he spoke, Ronan began to notice the way the car was moving. In the glow from the dash, Ronan could see that Adam's hands were loose on the wheel, muscles relaxed. He moved the car with smooth, perfect little dips and swerves. Ronan squinted out the side window, and he caught tiny glimpses of debris passing close on either side. How could Adam see well enough to drive? 

They floated through dark, narrow streets with broken streetlamps, as though they always drove in the pitch dark with no light. Adam glided through the destruction like magic.

"Here we are," Adam said.

A line of Jaegers stood at attention in the distance. A security gate loomed. Adam had taken him to school. Aglionby Military Academy.

"Parrish," Ronan said, a low warning.

Adam zipped an ID card - whose? - through a security checkpoint in the back. He parked the car. In the silence, Ronan could hear Adam's calm breathing. He squeezed his nails into his palm. 

"Congratulations," Ronan said. "You broke into school. Time to get away from me." It was too dark to see Adam's face. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood. He waited for Adam to leave. He wondered what it would be like if he didn't. 

"Come inside," Adam said. He stepped out of the car, and immediately, the space looked hollow and wanting. His words drifted down to Ronan in the passenger seat like a cool breeze. "I'll show you how to fix things."

*

He didn't ask how Adam had stolen his secret dream-object set of keys for sneaking into Aglionby. He didn't ask why Adam was leading him in here. He didn't ask how Adam found it all in the dark, like a cat, like a dream.

Adam's hand brushed against his arm. Ronan's breathing hitched, but he didn't pull away.

"In here," Adam said.

It was a large, echoing room. Adam shut the door behind them, clicked the lock, and switched on the lights.

Ronan looked around, and his mouth hardened into a line. His feet rooted into the floor.  
      
"Enough," he hissed. 

All the pieces for two drifting suits lay waiting in front of a complicated dashboard and a wall of machinery. This was the simulator room. It was the place for students to drift. 

Adam looked at him, eyes cool as ice tea. He said nothing. He pulled off his shirt and began to snap on a suit.

Ronan grabbed a glove out of Adam's hand and tossed it away. "I said enough!"

Adam did not retrieve the glove. He watched Ronan, and waited. Some piece of equipment in the room emitted a low buzz.

"Why are we here?" Ronan's voice was rasping, hoarse. Desperate. .

Adam led Ronan to a chair. 

"Do you believe we're drift compatible?" Adam said.

Ronan clenched his teeth.

"Do you?" When Ronan didn't answer, Adam continued. "Good," he said. "So we're going to drift. And you're going to sleep. And since I'll be in your head, I can control what your dream does, and I won't let any Kaiju out. And we'll do this every night, and that's how you'll sleep."

Ronan looked hard at Adam Parrish, golden and unreal in his chiseled jaeger suit. His voice came out as a low growl. 

"And you think you'll be able to stop the army of Kaiju inside my head? All on your own?"

It occured to Ronan that in this situation, most people would give a chin-up, pep-talk, go-team answer - _I can do this! We can do this!_ \- and he hoped for that. That would make it so easy. To laugh, to rail against it. 

"You honestly believe it?" Ronan hissed. 

Adam's mouth curled into a tiny smile. "You do."


End file.
